Re: paleonet new Intell. Design art. in NY Times

[Bill Chaisson/Deirdre Cunningham <chaisson@xxxxxxxxxx>]

Title: Re: paleonet new Intell. Design art. in NY Times

"Design for Living" - it's an article by Michael Behe - a fantastic new
example of anti-science, anti-evolution propaganda from the Discovery

Institute.  Sigh.

The fourth claim in the design argument is also controversial: in the absence of any convincing non-design explanation, we are justified in thinking that real intelligent design was involved in life. To evaluate this claim, it's important to keep in mind that it is the profound appearance of design in life that everyone is laboring to explain, not the appearance of natural selection or the appearance of self-organization.

The strong appearance of design allows a disarmingly simple argument: if it looks, walks and quacks like a duck, then, absent compelling evidence to the contrary, we have warrant to conclude it's a duck. Design should not be overlooked simply because it's so obvious.

Behe writes this paragraph after dismissing the complexity theory in a couple of lines.  He dismisses the possible extent of self-organization in life forms by offering the analogy of the hurricane formation, which very much over-simplifies the role of complexity in evolution.

Earlier in the essay he actually writes:

In the past 50 years modern science has shown that the cell, the very foundation of life, is run by machines made of molecules. There are little molecular trucks in the cell to ferry supplies, little outboard motors to push a cell through liquid.

 

and goes on to quote biologist Bruce Alberts:

He emphasized that the term machine was not some fuzzy analogy; it was meant literally.

So Behe, a biochemist, is arguing that 50 years of reductionist biology guided by a mechanistic vision of biota has produced a strong belief among molecular biologists and biochemists that cells are "machines made of molecules".

And then, when their mechanical perspective can not account for how these machines evolved, they decide, essentially by fiat, that there must be a designer.

I'm sorry, but I find this to be incredibly lame.

Bill

-- 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
William P. Chaisson
Adjunct Assistant Professor
Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences
University of Rochester
Rochester, NY  14627
607-387-3892